Before the launch of the Namma Metro, the BMTC took the onus of providing feeder buses to the Metro. However, the 60 feeder buses, currently plying from six Metro stations, are hardly being used by commuters.
“Most of the buses are running empty,” said Abdul Khadir, traffic controller at Swami Vivekananda Road station on Old Madras Road.
“The few passengers who get into the buses are those who hop in from bus stops located on the way to the Metro stations.”
Bus driver Suresh Talwar, who plies the Metro feeder service from Indiranagar station through CMH Road, said, “More often than not, despite waiting at the station for 15 to 20 minutes, I hardly get one or two passengers. Sometimes, I don’t get passengers at all despite waiting for several minutes.”
A passenger at the Metro station pointed out, “It doesn’t make sense to finish a 7-km journey in 10 minutes and then spend 10 minutes waiting for a bus that will take 15 minutes to travel a distance of 2km in heavy traffic. People don’t have the patience to wait.”
She added that if the frequency of buses is higher, there might be more takers for the service. “I had to wait at least 20 minutes for a bus from Indiranagar station to Baiyappanahalli. I just got tired of waiting and walked 2km,” she said.
Bus driver Chandraiah, at the Indiranagar station, has a simple solution: “Increase the distance of the feeder services.”
“At present, we turn at the Domlur flyover and come back to the station. But a lot of people want to go to the Domlur depot, from where it will be easier for them to get a connecting bus. From Domlur, there are a lot of people who want to go towards Ulsoor. If we could extend the route a little, we would get more passengers.”
He added that the connecting buses to prime bus stops, such as Shivajinagar, Majestic, Shantinagar, HAL, BEML Gate and other major stops, would be of more help to passengers.
“While the intention is good and we could have a decent number of people using the services, we definitely need to tweak the routes a little,” he said.
Srinivas, another bus driver at Indiranagar station, said: “We have a 44-seater bus that takes about three or four people per trip. It is a waste of fuel and time. Smaller vehicles could be of more help.”
“Be it is a small vehicle or a big bus, it simply does not make sense if commuters don’t opt for the service. But yes, using a smaller vehicle would save a lot of fuel,” said Khadir. Manjunath, another bus driver on the feeder service, said the problem is quite simple and it can be solved.
“There are hardly any people using the Metro. It is more of a museum piece. They just want to take a ride. Considering that the number of people using the Metro as a public transport is quite less, it is not surprising that the feeder services get less number of passengers. Moreover, what is lacking is awareness. People are only slowly getting to know about the available feeder services.”
Mallesh, a conductor, added that the point of feeder service is to be of help to people and is not run as a profitable business.
“It does not matter how many people take the bus. For people who want to go to Majestic and other stations, there are bus stops close by where they can get buses from. But a lot of commuters have offices on Metro routes. As long as it is helpful to these people, the feeder service should be available,” he said.
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